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App Review: A Beautiful Mess

It's here! The new photo editing app from the owners of the A Beautiful Mess blog. Obviously, I love it.

The app is only a dollar, available just for iPhones (sorry Androids!), and is basically the most fun ever. Tons of super sweet borders, doodles and designs, and cute fonts to play with until your picture is post-perfect. I have spent probably hours already going through everything on there.

One of the things that I really love about the app is how you can edit the filters. We all know how to slap an Instagram filter on a picture and call it a day. While the ABM app has far fewer actual filters to choose from, you have way more control on how your picture looks. You have the option to edit the contrast, brightness, and opacity. Fun!

Another really cool feature is the inclusion of tons of cute backgrounds for placing text over. This is great just for little notes you'd want to post online or even secret little love letters to text to your friends!

The only few things that I wish were different are:

An undo button! Once you place something, it is there for good! I like to use the trail-and-error approach with adding deco to my pictures. For this, I have to completely start over..

Ability to re-size borders. All the doodles, text, and phrases can be re-sized, twisted around, and placed however you want. The borders can be rotated, too, but you can't make it any bigger or smaller. It isn't the biggest deal, but sometimes that cute little flower wreath isn't large enough to fit around Chester's massive kitty tummy!

The app has only been out for like a DAY, seriously, so these two points aren't so much pushy, just suggestions for the next update of the application.

There are many in-game purchases for the editing categories (all for another 99 cents), and I've already downloaded three of the add-on packs. There are more cute phrases, fonts, backgrounds, borders, and doodles. However, if you don't want to go over a buck on your budget, the features included in the original download are more than enough to have fun and make cuuuute pictures.

Here are some of my creations.

My bracelet collection today. Spikes, bow, and beige studded wrap all from heartbreaker; watch from eBay, and skulls from Charlotte Russe (as well as my dress)!

Delicate new shirt! White is a scary color, and so is having intricate little laser cutouts on my woven top. We'll see how long this guy lasts in my clumsy world. I love it, though! (The little faded flowers on the border are from a different app: Snapeee, which I haven't totally figured out yet. Next review will be that!)

My not-quite-crazy arm decorations from a few days ago.

Playing with layering the doodles and text with an old picture on my phone from my trip to Japan last year. I love that fish building and I love Shinjuku!

I bought this too, fiddled with it and realized I had to spend around $10 or more for a supposedly 99 cent app to get any kind of decent photo out of it. This one is getting deleted. I'm extremely disappointed with it.